The Future for Triple Triad Tournaments
Hello, everyone. Producer and Director Yoshida here. Thank you all for your feedback on the Triple Triad tournaments!
Let me start with an apology for the lack of adjustments thus far, and also for the delay in communicating our plans for upcoming changes. The team is currently neck-deep in development for Heavensward, even as they look to finalize content for Patch 2.55, and the timing has not been ideal for testing and implementing major fixes. So to keep the development schedule running smoothly, we’ve decided to implement adjustments for the Triple Triad tournaments over the course of several minor patches, beginning with Patch 2.55. We also considered putting the tournaments on hold until all the necessary changes had been made...but as there are no other means of acquiring certain rare cards, the competitions will continue as usual.
That said, I’d like to discuss some of the pressing issues and popular requests and explain how we plan on addressing them.
Issue: The effort required to build a competitive tournament deck
Acquiring Triple Triad cards is a demanding task, and this in turn discourages players from participating in tournaments─without at least thirty cards, it’s difficult to build effective decks. So to improve this situation, we will be looking into reducing the match difficulty for NPCs who reward cards, thus making it easier to reach that thirty-card threshold. (To be addressed in Patch 2.55)
Issue:　Loss of motivation to continue playing when there is little chance of placing in the top ranks
Participants often lose the desire to keep playing tournament matches once a place in the top ranks is no longer within reach. In response to this problem, we will be introducing a new feature wherein players are rewarded with a generous amount of MGP based on their final tournament score (regardless of rank). We intend to make other similar adjustments to provide greater incentives for participants to play through to the end of a tournament.
In a similar fashion, players who accumulate a certain number of tournament points (again, regardless of rank) will be rewarded with a platinum Triad card─which has the possibility of yielding a rare card. By offering a means to earn rare cards other than placing in the higher ranks, we hope to encourage more players to take part in Triple Triad tournaments.
We are, however, still debating whether or not these adjustments can be squeezed into Patch 2.55, and if their introduction is deemed too risky, we will delay implementation until a later patch (Patch 2.56 etc.).
Requests: Eliminating unfair collusion between players/Making it possible to challenge players without the need for discussion
As measures such as those previously described are implemented, we anticipate a significant drop in unsuitable tournament conduct (i.e. using multiple accounts to ensure victory, or throwing matches for payment). Naturally, we don’t believe that these unfair practices will be eliminated completely─unless the system is changed so that tournament rankings are strictly based on victories won through random matching, there will always be a way to cheat regardless of the measures we introduce. But supposing we did change the system to rely solely upon random matching, we would then run the risk of alienating all but the most dedicated Triple Triad players.
Taking these points into consideration, we have two main goals around which future adjustments and additions will be planned. The first goal is to build upon those measures already discussed, and develop a tournament system that is both fun and rewarding for all participants. The second goal─implementing more strictly run tournaments─will require more time to achieve.
I understand that many players are in favor of being able to use the Duty Finder to set up Triple Triad matches. Unfortunately, however, the Duty Finder does not support one-on-one matching at this time. Should such a feature be integrated into the current system, it will also require us to introduce measures to combat a host of related issues such as increased server load, mid-match AFKing, and dropped connections. As you can imagine, this all takes time to test and perfect.
But our players have spoken, and we are looking into designing an improved tournament system (more tightly run competitions based upon match victories) that will make use of this matching feature. We plan to have something concrete ready not too long after the release of Heavensward, and so once more I ask for your understanding and patience.
These are our current goals, and, moving forward, we will continue to rely heavily upon player feedback when considering any changes that need to be made to the Triple Triad tournament system, rules, and rewards. This process of trial and error may continue for a while, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions on how we can make the game even better!
